Chick-fil-A is vilified by the American left — and particularly the LGBTQ+ community — like few other American companies.

The reason is clear: They are honest, biblical Christians in their beliefs and statements, including on marriage being between one man and one woman — because that is what the Bible explicitly says and what all of Christianity and the rest of the world believed through all of history until, literally just a few years ago.

But that adherence to biblical norms in today’s America means they must be crushed by the activist LGBTQ+ left that seeks to destroy anyone who will not think like them, i.e. bakers, florists and pizza shops around the nation.

This has resulted in a growing number of bans — and a fascinating turn of events.

The first wave of bans was in 2012, when Democratic city officials in San Francisco, Boston and New York threatened or enacted bans or attempted to block Chick-fil-A from opening restaurants in their cities because Chick-fil-A donated to Christian organizations such as the Family Research Council.

The LGBTQ+ activists organized boycotts and were immediately swamped by giant counter-protests with Chick-fil-A’s customers standing in line around corners to show their support. Rarely has a tactic backfired so magnificently.

The newest round of bans came after the leftist ThinkProgress organization charged that the Chick-fil-A foundation supported “groups with a record of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.” Those miscreant hate-filling groups? The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which both operate on clear biblical understandings that are 2,000 years old. Chick-fil-A gave $1.6 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and $150,000 to the Salvation Army in 2017.

That generosity resulted in the San Antonio City Council banning Chick-fil-A at their airport because “everyone should feel welcome when they walk through our airport,” according to Councilman Robert Trevino. Two weeks later, a New York Democratic assemblyman Sean Ryan, announced that the Buffalo airport was prohibiting Chick-fil-A from operating there, because “the views of Chick-fil-A do not represent our state or the Western New York community.”

Actually, they probably do.

Most recently, the kiddos in the student government at Trinity University, a private liberal arts college in Texas affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, voted to ban Chick-fil-A from their campus. The school does not have a Chick-fil-A on their campus, but serves its food on a rotating basis in the cafeteria. The unanimous vote to ban the chain was because of Chick-fil-A’s donations to groups that failed to support LGBTQ+ rights.

During all of this, Chick-fil-A executives have been nothing but class, creating a pretty stark contrast with those who are trying to shut them down and destroy the company if possible.

In an interview with Business Insider, Rodney Bullard, vice president of corporate social responsibility at Chick-fil-A and executive director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, said the foundation focuses on lower-income and underserved youth.

“The calling for us is to ensure that we are relevant and impactful in the community, and that we’re helping children and that we’re helping them to be everything that they can be,” Bullard said. “For us, that’s a much higher calling than any political or cultural war that’s being waged.”

He also said that Chick-fil-A would be willing to work with LGBTQ+ groups in reaching children through these programs they have with 300 partners.

Chick-fil-A does not discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in hiring or serving. So this is about what Chick-fil-A leaders think and say. Further, they are willing to work with LGBTQ+ groups without requiring them to change their views. That, of course, is not reciprocated.

But a funny thing has happened in all of these attacks on Chick-fil-A. The chain is growing at a torrid pace.

Restaurant Business researched Technomic’s Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report and reported that Chick-fil-A’s domestic sales leapfrogged Taco Bell, Wendy’s and Burger King last year and will almost assuredly pass Subway this year to make it the third-largest restaurant chain by sales, behind only McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Kalinowski Equity Research agrees with that assessment: “We have long pointed out that Chick-fil-A is the restaurant competition with which McDonald’s U.S. should most concern itself—and by extension, investors should, too.”

Chick-fil-A sales increased 14.2 percent in 2018 and may increase 15 percent this year, much faster than any major, mature chain.

This success will not go unnoticed. And it is not likely to change behavior towards the chain by LGBTQ+ activists.

There is a deep well of hate for traditional Christian beliefs on the left and specifically in the LGBTQ+ activist corner. So expect ThinkProgress to continue to push out information on Chick-fil-A’s connections with Christian organizations and try to damage the company.

But at this point, apparently the American people are disinclined to pay attention beyond countering with buying more chicken sandwiches.

“It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of decreeing accordingly.” So said Anglo-Irish essayist Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. Unfortunately, something has changed almost three centuries later:

The decisions have perhaps become even more iniquitous.

Swift was rightly mocking the notion of “judicial precedent.” Yet it’s even more preposterous in our time and place, for at least 18th-century British judges didn’t have a constitution to violate. How is the principle even remotely defensible, however, in a nation with our Constitution, the “supreme law of the land”?

One justice who apparently understands this is Clarence Thomas, who just wrote the majority opinion in a recent decision (Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt) overturning a 1979 precedent. He was the ideal candidate for the task, as it has been noted that he’s not a “Court conservative” as much as an originalist. A conservative, after all, would hew to the status quo, which here means honoring precedent. In contrast, as SCOTUSblog pointed out in 2007, Thomas “believes that precedent qua precedent concerning constitutional law has no value at all; he does not give stare decisis [the notion that judicial decisions should not be undone] any weight.”

This is why I’ve long said that Thomas is by far the best SCOTUS justice of recent decades (yes, that includes Scalia). Moreover, it’s certainly right to distinguish between Thomas’ originalism and being merely a “Court conservative,” which more and more is seeming akin to a court jester.

Why this is so was encapsulated well by British philosopher G.K. Chesterton when he wrote, “The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition.”

Staredecisis’ folly should be obvious. In what other field would anyone assert that once a decision is made, it stays made? Since it’s a statistical certainty that not all decisions will be good ones, this standard only ensures the permanency of error.

Yet to fully grasp staredecisis’ outrageousness, an analogy is useful. Chief Justice John Roberts once correctly said that a judge’s role is only to call “balls and strikes” (this was before he decided that a ball could be a strike when striking a blow for statism). Expanding on this, judges are in fact like baseball umpires, whereas the players are akin to the people, the sport’s ruling body is a sort of legislature and the rulebook is essentially its constitution.

Now, it goes without saying that if an umpire “ruled” contrary to the rulebook — let’s say, refusing to call a player out after three strikes because he believed they were too few — we wouldn’t flatter his falsity and legitimize his legerdemain by calling him a “pragmatist” with a “living document” philosophy. We’d recognize him as a bad umpire derelict in his duty, and he’d be fired.

To the point, however, what would you say about someone who not only accepted his judgment, but viewed it as unchangeable “precedent”?

This notion is just as ridiculous when applied to judges — only far more dangerous. It should in fact disqualify someone from the bench, for justices take an oath to uphold the Constitution.

They do not take an oath to uphold other judges.

Imagine the reaction if we applied this stare decisis philosophy to President Trump’s determinations. Imagine we said that not only can he “change” the law on the basis that it’s “living,” but that his decisions should then be binding on all future presidents. How would that go over?

No, the analogy isn’t invalid because he’s not a black-robed lawyer. All these office-holders take an oath to uphold the Constitution — and none of them are supposed to be above that supreme law of the land.

Many want to be, though. Power is an aphrodisiac, and this brings us to why judges’ love affair with precedent reflects nothing noble. As Thomas Jefferson explained in an 1820 letter in which he warned about judicial supremacy, “Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privileges of their corps.”

This was perhaps reflected in liberal Justice Stephen Breyer’s reaction to the recently overturned precedent. “Today’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the court will overrule next,” he complained. A good justice would be concerned only with what unconstitutional precedent would not be overturned next.

But why is Breyer upset? Is it because he wants to maintain the power of his corps and its privilege of being above the law?

Stare decisis is just a euphemistic way of saying that judges’ decisions — “precedent” — should take precedence over the Constitution. This perverts our system. It undermines the republic. We’re supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The Constitution reflects the people’s will in that it was ratified by the states and because Americans tacitly approve it to this day it by allowing it to stand; after all, they can amend it through their representatives.

Yet when judges place their own opinions above the Constitution, such as when elevating precedent, they establish themselves as an oligarchy. We then don’t have the rule of law but the rule of lawyers, a government of, by and for those who’ve arrogated to themselves the power and privilege to manipulate the law according to their own will.

Note, too, that hard and fast respect for precedent actually has no precedent, as our history’s more than 100overturned SCOTUS decisions attest. So why do leftists now act as if it’s sacrosanct?

Because after more than a century of moving the courts “left,” there’s now a large body of unconstitutional, leftist precedents that serve their agenda. Stare decisis is not for these people principle but ploy, a convenient value of the moment.

Thus, when going through the Senate confirmation process, the norm now is for more “conservative” judges to be asked if they’ll abide by certain precedents (i.e., Roe v. Wade). Translated, this is a demand to conserve yesterday’s progressives’ mistakes.

In reality, judicial nominees should be asked if they’ll respect precedent — and then be roundly rejected upon answering yes. For we can’t MAGA unless we MAJJA: Make American Judges Judges Again. For tolerating oligarchs in black robes ensures a dark future.

Jihad is a “personal struggle in devotion to Islam, especially involving spiritual discipline.”

“To Muslims, Allah is the same God that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism.”

“Men are the managers of the affairs of women” and “Righteous women are therefore obedient.”

Imagine the shock when 11th-grader at La Plata High School, Caleigh Wood, revealed this to her parents. More students and more parents need to actively need to get involved as Caleigh Wood did. She bravely stood up for her rights as a Christian. She stated that, as part of an assignment, she “was also required to profess in writing, the Islamic conversion creed, ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.’” For refusing to concede to the sharia and standing “firm in her Christian beliefs”, Wood was punished for it and given a failing grade for non-compliance.

Her case has now gone to the supreme court. “The Thomas More Law Center has submitted a petition asking the high court to take up the case of student Caleigh Wood.” Its president, Richard Thompson warned:

Under the guise of teaching history or social studies, public schools across America are promoting the religion of Islam in ways that would never be tolerated for Christianity or any other religion.

Jihad Watch reported on May 19th that a Washington school district was caught promoting Islam for Ramadan through a CAIR initiative. Now lawyers have sent a cease and desist letter. Islamization happens rapidly if unnoticed and unchallenged. Parents need to be paying attention to what their children are being indoctrinated with and taught in schools.

Jihad is a “personal struggle in devotion to Islam, especially involving spiritual discipline.”

“To Muslims, Allah is the same God that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism.”

“Men are the managers of the affairs of women” and “Righteous women are therefore obedient.”

The problem is that those statements were part of the instruction in a public school in Maryland, and one of the students in the classroom now is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to condemn such religious lessons funded by taxpayers.

The Thomas More Law Center has submitted a petition asking the high court to take up the case of student Caleigh Wood.

“As a Christian and 11th-grader at La Plata High School in Maryland, Caleigh Wood was taught that ‘Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.’ She was also required to profess in writing, the Islamic conversion creed, ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.’ Ms. Wood believed that it is a sin to profess by word or in writing, that there is any other god except the Christian God. She stood firm in her Christian beliefs and was punished for it. The school refused her request to opt-out or give her an alternative assignment. She refused to complete her anti-Christian assignment and consequently received a failing grade,” the legal team explained Wednesday.

Lower courts have given a free pass to the school district to teach Islam, and so TMLC filed the request with the Supreme Court to decide “whether any legal basis exists to allow public schools to discriminate against Christianity while at the same time promote Islam.”

“Under the guise of teaching history or social studies, public schools across America are promoting the religion of Islam in ways that would never be tolerated for Christianity or any other religion,” said Richard Thompson, TMLC’s president.

“I’m not aware of any school which has forced a Muslim student to write the Lord’s Prayer or John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,’” he said.

“Many public schools have become a hot bed of Islamic propaganda. Teaching Islam in schools has gone far beyond a basic history lesson. Prompted by zealous Islamic activism and emboldened by confusing court decisions, schools are now bending over backwards to promote Islam while at the same time denigrate Christianity. We are asking the Supreme Court to provide the necessary legal guidance to resolve the insidious discrimination against Christians in our public schools,” he said.

Unresolved include whether or not schools can make preferential statements about one religion over another, and whether students may be required to assert religious beliefs with which they disagree.

And how do those concepts align with “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?

The Charles County public schools and officials are defendants.

The filing explains the lower courts, despite the First Amendment’s requirements, “upheld the ability for [the school] to denigrate Petitioner Caleigh Wood’s faith and require her to write out statements and prayers contradictory to her own religious beliefs.”….

SAN DIEGO, May 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — One America News Network (“OAN“) announced today continued strong ratings as the 2020 Presidential Election season begins to reach top-of-mind awareness with television viewers. In a relatively short period, One America News Network, which launched its 24/7 cable news network on July 4, 2013, has established itself as a reliable source of national and international news with viewers across our nation. Network founder and CEO, Robert Herring, Sr. released the following statement:

Herring Networks, Inc. relies on a custom Comscore measurement solution powered by TV viewing from one MVPD partner across 70 U.S. markets. We have been working with Comscore since 2009 and believe its data is the most accurate in our industry, as it uses set-top box data, not sampling. In March 2019, Comscore data shows that of the networks categorized exclusively as Cable, News/ Business/ Info networks, OAN ranked as the fourth-highest service in that genre, behind Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN. OAN outperformed CNN Headline News, Fox Business Channel, CNBC, BBC World News, Fusion, Bloomberg and others, per the same March 2019 data. Also, for the March 2019 period, OAN outranked SyFy, Animal Planet, Nat Geo, Travel, and other well-established channels. Excluding all Broadcast channels, OAN ranked as the 40th national cable channel in March 2019 for the one MVPD included in the custom measurement. These custom rankings will vary from Comscore’s syndicated TV Essentials rankings, which cover Comscore’s full set-top box measurement in over 30MM households and 210 local markets.

Early this month, One America News also premiered a late-night comedy program called “Headlines Tonight with Drew Berquist“, which debuted on May 4th. The new comedy series has earned a regular Saturday night time slot at 10 pm ET with encore presentations at midnight ET.

About Headlines Tonight with Drew Berquist

Headlines Tonight with Drew Berquistis a late night comedy program airing exclusively on One America News Network. Join Drew Berquist for the laughs as he reviews the latest news headlines with his own witty twists. The Headlines Tonight cast delivers comical sketches and amusing parody of the leading headlines and newsmakers. When you need a break from the real news, Headlines Tonight with Drew Berquistdelivers.

About One America News Network

One America News Network is a dependable, reliable source for credible live news reporting 24/7. It also provides two one-hour political talk shows, namely The Daily Ledger and Tipping Point with Liz Wheeler. While other established cable news networks offer just several hours of live news coverage, only OAN can claim to consistently provide 21 hours of live coverage Monday through Friday with extensive weekend coverage. In addition to external news-gathering sources, the network operates news bureaus in Washington, D.C., New York and California. One America News Networkis available in 35 million homes on leading national cable providers, including AT&T U-verse, Buckeye Communications, CenturyLink PRISM TV, DirecTV, DirecTV NOW, Frontier Communications, GCI Communications, Service Electric, Verizon FiOS TV, and numerous regional video providers across the nation. For more information on One America News Network, please visit www.OANN.com.

The Deep State and the Democrats are in complete panic mode as Pelosi pulls a trigger and ignites a bomb in a war of words stating that the President is covering up the Russia probe. In addition to that, they have invoked the “I” word as President Trump indicated, that being, impeachment. Here’s my take on this and it’s short and sweet.

Team Trump is narrowing in on them and they know that their covers, firewalls and insurance policies have blown up in their faces. Trump has laid all the traps and they are being drawn into them. The stage is being set for the checkmate.

Hang in there fellow patriots, hang in there. There will be NO impeachment and Trump has nothing to cover up. The whole damn thing was a hoax. The Deep State, and the Dems are in full scale panic mode gasping for their last breath as the de-class is underway. They are all going down. Think it’s intense now? Watch what happens over the coming weeks and months. We are with you President Trump. The people are with you 100%.

There must be “consequences” for those claiming Russian collusion if Mueller report shows none. – Tucker Carlson

Democrats continue to show day in and day out, they’re nothing but sore losers. At some point, they have to realize that they have been beat by President Trump in the 2016 election. They’re getting beat … on issues that actually matter, and I think they’re a sad excuse for a political party right now. At some point, they have to decide if they want to govern. – Sarah Sanders

This is not a game! This is the president of the United States. This nation deserves full-time leadership and no further effort to subvert, to overthrow the presidency of Donald J. Trump. – Lou Dobbs

When during their exhaustive 22-month investigation did Mueller and his team of Hillary supporting Democratic prosecutors realize they had no case? Probably no later than at the end of 2017, but I’d guess from the beginning. By the time Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017, the FBI had been trying unsuccessfully for nearly a year to corroborate the bogus Steele dossier’s allegations.

Democrats and their complicit media are far worse than sore losers. They have done everything in their power to destroy President Trump from the day he declared his candidacy. They hate him, they hate his supporters and they hate anyone who righteously campaigned for him.

Rod Rosenstein approved the application to extend surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The NYTs claimed the FBI and DOJ’s application was based partially on research by investigator Christopher Steele, who compiled the spurious dossier.

When Rosenstein testified in a House hearing about FBI and DOJ abuses, he was asked by former judge Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) about the FISA warrant he signed and Rosenstein looked to FBI Director Wray for the answer – a move that disturbed Gohmert. Rosenstein said he signed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) documents to spy on Carter Page and told Congressman Gohmert that he didn’t need to read every document he signed, that he merely needed to understand what’s in it.

That started this entire nightmare-from-hell for not only the President, but his administration, supporters and the entire country. The people who ran the DOJ were vicious dogs, and yes, our bloated government uses “national security” to cover up their crimes.

There is far too much on Rod Rosenstein that doesn’t make sense. He is far too chummy with Mueller, Comey and Wray to really want true justice. And few believe he didn’t want to wear a wire and record our President.

The Sordid Mueller Investigation

The Mueller investigation is finally over and $35 million American tax dollars have been spent on researching and investigating the cooked up lies of Hillary Clinton and the DNC “paid for” Steele dossier which led to this fictitious probe. And all those tax dollars were paid to attorneys who hate Donald Trump. Andrew Weissmann was the man given authority to hire the rest of the investigators for Robert Mueller, and Weissmann should have been disbarred long ago after the Enron case where he bent or broke rules to get false guilty pleas.

The resulting investigation prosecuted Americans for everything except the “collusion” it was supposed to uncover, many of whom will suffer lasting affects.

Weissmann was Mueller’s legal Pit Bull and the two of them worked hand in glove using the same rotten modus operandi they’ve effectively employed for over thirty years. Those in their crosshairs even plead guilty to charges that weren’t crimes. They also plead guilty to save family members, and they pleaded guilty when they’d previously been investigated by the government and found innocent. They pleaded guilty when those on the left did far worse and were never charged…i.e., Podesta’s and Biden’s. Financial destruction was imminent for all targeted by Mueller.

Sidney Powell wrote the tell-all book, Licensed to Lie, and it exposed the corruption of justice especially in the Enron case. Powell served in the Department of Justice for ten years in Texas and Virginia and has devoted her private practice to federal appeals for the past twenty years. “All of the cases Weissmann pushed to trial were reversed in whole or in part due to some form of his overreaching and abuses,” Sidney Powell told The Washington Times. “The most polite thing the Houston bar said about Weissmann was that he was a madman.” In early 2018, Sara Carter reported that Weissmann and Mueller were connected to two of the largest scandals in FBI history, and they got away with it.

Bill Barr’s Investigators

What are the odds that the Durham investigation will bring the corrupt players to justice? Certainly, there is hope with the new Attorney General William Barr. However, knowing government machinations, I am not holding my breath. Yet…justice is so longed for, and John Durham looks to be the man who could give it to us!

John Durham, the prosecutor appointed by AG Barr to investigate how Trump-Russia allegations emerged and spread within federal law enforcement, has already been looking into whether the FBI’s former top lawyer, James Baker, illegally leaked to reporters.

The U.S. attorney from Connecticut appears to have begun that work more than seven months ago, to judge from an underreported transcript of an October congressional interview with Baker. Could it be that Acting U.S. AG, Matthew Whitaker, who succeeded Jeff Sessions and held the post from early November 2018 to February 14, 2019, tapped John Durham?

Mr. Durham has a long history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among law enforcement and national security officials. He was appointed to the federal bench in 2017 by President Trump. Attorney Durham has even investigated the use or misuse of FBI informants.

In fact, one of his best-known investigations was of the FBI’s handling of the mass murderer and Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. It was Robert Mueller, Mr. Integrity, who kept four innocent people in prison for decades in order to keep Whitey Bulger from being exposed as an FBI informant. Four people who were innocent were kept in jail for years in order to protect the status of murdering Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.

In 1999, AG Janet Reno appointed Durham to investigate if FBI informants Bulger and his buddy, Stephen Flemmi had corrupted their FBI handlers. In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of the four other FBI informants because they’d been framed by Robert Mueller’s FBI. Two of those four men died in prison. Mueller kept four innocent people in jail for years to protect the informant status of Whitey Bulger, a mass-murdering Boston mobster who ended up dying in California, and it ended up costing American taxpayers $100 million plus in civil judgments. For the full story, purchase John Milkovich’s book, Robert Mueller: Errand Boy for the New World Order.

Former federal prosecutor, Nora Dannehy agreed to join Durham two months ago. Dannehy prosecuted complex political corruption, including cases resulting in the convictions of former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and former state Treasurer Paul Silvester. In 2008, she was assigned to Washington to investigate whether prosecutors in the President George W. Bush justice department had been fired for political reasons.

William Barr has enlisted the help of the CIA to investigate whether the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign was motivated by partisan bias.

CIA director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and FBI director Chris Wray are all participating in the investigation, which Barr first announced publicly during a congressional hearing last month.

Is this a danger sign or an indication that someone highly knowledgeable is on the case? Christopher Wray is part of the Deep State; he’s covered for many of the corrupt in the FBI and made derogatory remarks regarding our President. He should never be involved. As for Gina Haspell, we don’t know where she stands.

John Huber

For eighteen months we’ve not heard a peep out of John Huber, he’s MIA and as a U.S. attorney who oversees federal prosecutions in the District of Utah, we should have heard something. Even Jim Jordan has commented that Huber is like “Where’s Waldo?” Where’s Huber?

There has been nary a public peep from U.S. Attorney John Huber, the man Jeff Sessions assigned to get to the bottom of things. Likely witnesses say Mr. Huber has never contacted them, and members of Congress say they are still in the dark despite regular pleas to see progress.

Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department prosecutor and now a private lawyer, with her husband, Joe diGenova, said of the Huber investigation, “It is a head fake, a farce. It was an attempt by Sessions to get Republicans off his back. I’m embarrassed for them because they fell for it, and I hope something happens now.” Link

Allegedly Huber is working collaboratively in the internal investigation with Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, but we have no idea when that report will be made public.

Conclusion

Barr told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, “I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016. I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal, I think spying did occur, yes.” The mainstream media hates that he used the word “spying,” but Barr has openly said it’s a perfect word to use.

And now, Barack Obama’s corrupt officials, including former Attorney General Eric Holder are all lashing out at AG Bill Barr because he has launched a massive investigation into the origins of Spygate.

They’re even harping at each other because of their fear of what John Durham’s investigation might lead to… perhaps grand jury indictments for many of them.

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The huge investments made in defensive systems are slowly emerging as an exorbitant and costly failure—or at best a very partial and temporary success. The time has come to rethink Israel’s strategic paradigm.

Earlier this week (5/21/2019), both Israel and Hamas denied reports that they had reached an agreement on a six-month cease fire. Irrespective of any credence one wishes to ascribe the denial, it underscored just how fragile the current lull in hostilities is and how easily they could re-ignite.

Although it has been barely two weeks since the violence in the South subsided, public recollection of what transpired has faded rapidly—with the intervening Independence Day celebrations and the Eurovision hullaballoo helping to dull collective memory.

A brief—but necessary—reminder

This is unfortunate—and disturbing.

For it is vital to recall that the latest round of fighting between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip raised troubling questions as to the soundness of the strategic rationale underpinning Israel’s missile defense system—particularly the much vaunted “Iron Dome”.

Indeed, even before the heavy barrages that rained down on Israel in early May, doubts began to emerge as to the efficacy of the system, when projectiles launched from Gaza penetrated, un-intercepted, deep into Israel, hitting residences in the city of Beer Sheva and in Mishmeret, a village North of Tel Aviv—and two others landed close to Tel Aviv itself, fortunately causing no damage.

According to Israeli military sources, during the last flare-up, 690 rockets and mortars were fired toward Israeli targets from Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. About 90 failed to make it across the border. Of those that did, 240 were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, which assesses whether a rocket is likely to strike open ground or needs to be intercepted. The system reportedly had 87% accuracy on attempted interceptions, with 35 rockets striking urban areas. In the barrage, four Israelis were killed and over 200 were treated in Israeli hospitals.

Significantly, the number of Israeli civilians killed in the two-day conflict was almost identical to that incurred during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, which lasted nearly two months, when the Gaza-based terror organizations launched more than 4,500 missiles, rockets, and mortar shells at Israeli civilian population centers.

Has the “Iron Dome” become the “Iron Sieve”?

One of the reasons advanced for the Iron Dome’s ostensibly diminished capacity was the intensity of the barrages fired at Israel concentrated within a short time period. Seemingly affirming that this was a purposeful tactic, a spokesman for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades proclaimed: “The Qassam Brigades, thanks to God, succeeded in overcoming the so-called Iron Dome by adopting the tactic of firing dozens of missiles in one single burst.”

These results prompted expressions of skepticism—even unfounded derision—as to the true ability of the Iron Dome system to effectively protect Israel’s civilian population—even prompting once source to claim—somewhat unfairly—“It’s not Iron Dome. It’s Iron Sieve.”

Of course, such censure may be excessively harsh. After all, the Iron Dome is an extraordinary technological achievement, which has in the past greatly reduced loss of life and physical damage that otherwise may have been inflicted on Israel.

Nonetheless, in light of its somewhat spotty performance of late, there certainly appears to be a strong case for critical reexamination of the strategic rationale underlying the use of the Iron Dome.

Indeed, it far from unreasonable to assert that the Iron Dome has, in effect, provided protection for Gazans no less—arguably more—than for Israelis. After all, if the bulk of the on-target rocket barrages had not been intercepted, and had inflicted largescale damage on its cities and casualties among its civilians, Israel would have been compelled to retaliate with massive punitive measures to silence the fire. Inevitably, this would have caused extensive destruction and loss of life in the Gaza Strip—far beyond that which Israel was able to permit itself to inflict with its civilian population relatively protected.

“The State of Israel has so far invested significant sums in passive defense and complementary technologies, with the lion’s share going to the “Gaza envelope.” The main lesson is that existing plans for improving public and private shelters should be implemented in other parts of Israel, as a fatal strike on the civilian space would generate pressure on any Israeli government and reduce its leeway in the face of Hamas … fire.”

But in the context of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs, there is a grave strategic flaw in this kind of reasoning.

For it is precisely because the Iron Dome and “passive defense” have given the Israeli government “leeway in the face of Hamas fire”, that the fire has continued.

Thus, paradoxically, because much of their projectiles have indeed been intercepted, the terror organizations have been left intact, enabling them to continue launching further attacks whenever they see fit—typically either when they feel strong enough to do so, or too weak not to.

Defensive vs Offensive

The perverse situation is the result of the Iron Dome (and other missile defense systems) being perceived as solely defensive. Indeed, it is precisely this defense oriented strategy that has led to hostilities with Gaza continuing—with no end in sight.

The defining difference between defensive and offensive strategies is twofold:

(a) The element of surprise: The first is that relying heavily on defensive measures denies the defender the element of surprise in that, almost by definition, one cannot launch a surprise defense—in the sense that one can only defend against an attack once launched—often by surprise. So while it is possible that defense systems may comprise elements unexpected by the attacker, typically they can only be deployed against an ongoing attack.

(b) The damage inflicted: The second is that defensive measures cannot inflict greater losses than the resources any prospective aggressor is prepared to commit to an assault on his adversary. In the case of the Iron Dome, the maximum damage that can be inflicted is the destruction of the incoming missile, which the aggressor expected to lose anyway. Accordingly, missile defense systems, including the Iron Dome, cannot deter attacks by threatening to wreak unacceptable costs on the attacker and thus dissuade him from any further aggression.

The combination of these two elements—the one allowing Hamas and its terror affiliates to choose the time and scope of any attack; the other, allowing Hamas et al. to determine the limits of the damage wrought on them—provide in large measure the reason why the hostilities in Gaza persist.

Change of strategy imperative

The pattern of violence in Gaza is almost monotonously repetitive. Time and again, the Gazan terrorists have developed some offensive tactic to assault Israel. In response, Israel devised some countermeasure to contend with it. However, all these counter measures were designed to thwart the attacks, rather than prevent them being launched in the first place.

Thus, suicide attacks resulted in a security fence and secured crossings; which led to the development of enhanced rocket and missile capabilities; which lead to the development of the multimillion dollar Iron Dome; which led to the burrowing of an array of underground attack tunnels; which lead to the construction of a billion dollar subterranean barrier; which led to the use of incendiary kites and balloons that, last summer, reduced much of the rural South adjacent to the Gaza border, to blackened charcoal—and look likely to do so again in the coming months.

Indeed, Israel’s decade long policy of ceasing fire whenever the other side ceases fire has allowed Hamas, and its terror affiliates, to launch repeated rounds of aggression, determining not only when they are launched and when they end, but also largely controlling the cost incurred for such aggression –ensuring it remains within the range of the “acceptable”.

Significantly, after each round of fighting, despite the damage inflicted by the IDF, the Gazan-based terror groups have typically emerged with vastly enhanced military capabilities and political standing.

Soon drones with biological/chemical payload?

This is clearly a recipe for unending and escalating violence — and must be abandoned before it culminates in inevitable tragedy.

After all, the Gazan-based terror groups have shown consistently that they can transform everyday children’s playthings, such as kites, into instruments of extensive destruction, and forced Israel to develop hugely expensive defenses (such as Iron-Dome interceptors) to deal will risibly cheap weapons of attack (such as mortar shells).

Indeed, it is hardly beyond the limits of plausibility that Israel might soon have to face incoming missiles with multiple warheads, which disperse just before being intercepted, greatly challenging its missile defense capabilities. Or the development of some kind of anti-aircraft capabilities that could restrict — or at least hamper — Israel’s present unlimited freedom of action over the skies of Gaza.

Or worse, will Israel have to contend with the specter of a swarm of drones, possibly armed with biological or chemical payloads, directed at nearby Israeli communities — rendering the billion dollar anti-tunnel barrier entirely moot? For those who might dismiss this as implausible scaremongering– see here, and here.

Indeed, adhering to a purely defensive/reactive strategy will virtually ensure that some kind of offensive measure will be developed to make it ineffective—at least partially.

The offensive imperative: Arabs in Gaza or Jews in Negev

Clearly then, there will be no end to the recurring rounds of violence and the escalating enhancement of the enemies’ aggressive capabilities unless Israel undertakes a dramatic change in strategy. Accordingly, instead of focusing on thwarting attacks and limited reprisals for them, Israel must strive to eliminate the ability to launch them.

Rather than ‏employ systems such as the Iron Dome as a purely defensive measure, it should be incorporated as an auxiliary in offensive action –i.e. by minimizing danger and damage to the civilian sector while a large offensive is launched in order to take—and hold—the areas from which attacks were launched—preventing them from being used for future attacks.

This is the only sustainable long-term strategic rationale for a defense system which comprises launching very costly interceptor missiles at very cheap incoming ones.

The compelling imperative for this modus operandi, is of course, reinforced by the prospect of a coordinated attack by Hamas et al. from the South and Hezbollah—with its even more formidable arsenal—in the North.

Clearly, the prospect of Israel retaking and holding the Gaza Strip raises the perennially irksome question of what is to be done regarding the Arab population of Gaza.

As I’ve pointed out on numerous previous occasions, in addressing this question Israel must face up to—and internalize–the unpalatable, but inevitable, reality that, in the long run, there will either be Arabs in Gaza or Jews in the Negev. Eventually, however, there will not be both.

Perhaps the greatest Zionist challenge

Accordingly, then, to prevent the Jewish population being denuded by unabated Arab aggression—whether overhead missiles targeting kindergartens or underground tunnels targeting border communities; whether incendiary balloons or explosive kites or anti-tank rockets on cars buses and trains—the only policy is the evacuation of the Gazan population to third-party countries by means of a large scale initiative of incentivized emigration.

Although the details of such an initiative are clearly well beyond the scope of this essay, I have, elaborated on them frequently in the past –see here.

Marshaling the ideological commitment, the political legitimacy and international acceptance for such an initiative is perhaps one of the greatest challenges for Zionism today.

The goal of the new, strict Alabama abortion law is to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade. The law would penalize abortion doctors, and it contains no exception clauses, except for the life and health of the mother.

In all of the brouhaha about the new Alabama law, there is a long-stilled voice that has been forgotten. That of the repentant Roe of Roe v. Wade.

Of course, Norma McCorvey was the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. After converting to Christ and the pro-life position (about 15 years after the Supreme Court decision), she proclaimed to the world that the whole case had been based on a lie (a few lies, really). Chief among the lies was that she was raped (gang-raped at that), and that was why she needed an abortion.

By the time, Roe v. Wade was decided on January 22, 1973, Norma had already had her baby (a girl), whom she gave up for adoption. Justice William Rehnquist, one of two dissenters in the decision, voted against it because it was a moot point. Roe’s baby had already been born.

The opinion of Roe of Roe v. Wade is significant for the abortion debate, including the Alabama law, because abortion was accepted on a wide scale throughout the country, only by judicial fiat. It was not something “we the people” voted on.

Look at how divided the country continues to be on the subject of abortion. Well, why not? We the people did not decide that case on that fateful Monday. Dissenting Justice Byron White, the only Justice appointed by JFK, said that Roe was an “act of raw judicial power.”

Those who live by court decisions should die by court decisions. And Roe herself, after her pro-life and Christian conversion, tried to legally overturn Roe v. Wade since it was all based on lies. Therefore, if the new Alabama law helps overturn Roe, so be it.

Yet one person called the Alabama law “a major step towards the death of democracy.” Oh brother. The Constitution shows that the courts, including the Supreme Court, were never designed to legislate or execute our laws.

There obviously was a time when Roe favored abortion. She was in opposition to Henry Wade—the pro-life attorney general of Texas, where Norma was living at the time of the lawsuit that worked its way up to the high Court.

In an interview with D. James Kennedy Ministries television, she said, “My story began many, many years ago in 1969 when I found myself pregnant, on the streets. I was into drugs, and I really didn’t have any other alternatives in line. I did not believe in God, and I’d fallen away from the church at a very early age.”

Jumping ahead, change came about because of new neighbors moving in. Unwelcome neighbors at first. What transformed her in particular was meeting a little girl who truly loved God.

Norma continued, “In retrospect, when I look back on those days, and I see what a sad person I was, I have to really kind of smile and think about little Emily: a little seven year old girl who came up to me at my office one day and told me that if I knew God that I wouldn’t be going to the place downstairs. She befriended me when Operation Rescue moved in next door to the abortion clinic where I worked. And at first I didn’t like them there because they reminded me of what we were doing. I worked in an abortion clinic. We killed children for a living.”

She added, “I was a child-killer. I was an executioner.…There’s a fellow in the Bible; his name was Baal. He was into child sacrificing, and that’s basically what you’re doing out there today—you are sacrificing your child for a career, or high school or college.”

Norma found forgiveness through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who died for sinners, paying the penalty for our sins, for those who believe: “And I think once you’re forgiven by God, you should forgive yourself. But then you really should not put yourself in that kind of situation either.”

Norma warns against what happens in an abortion: “You are totally different after you’ve had an abortion. Abortion kind of sucks your soul dry; it makes you a very angry person inside, from what I’ve seen.”

This is why for the last several years of her life until her death in 2017, Norma McCorvey fought against abortion on demand. She would have welcomed Alabama’s new law as a way to try to undo the damage of Roe.

She said: “We want the child-killing to stop….There are other alternatives, other than abortion; there’s adoption….We don’t want to see Roe v. Wade to be the law of the land anymore. We want our children back.”

On 17 May the al-arabiyya TV program Sin’at al-Mawt interviewed two experts on Iranian affairs. The topic of the program was the attack against the oil tankers off the coast of the U.A.E. near Fujairah.

The Gulf-based expert believed that the operation against the oil tankers required the technologies and techniques of a state actor, and were not representative of a terrorist group like ISIS or the Houthis. However, later in the program he admitted that the Houthis could have done it after receiving training and equipment from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The Arabic-speaking, but London-based, expert noted intercepts of Iranian leaders talking about “doing something.” In this context he mentioned the head of the IRGC, the head of Iranian intelligence, the top figures from Iranian military and government discussing what they should do. The bottom line, is that the consensus settled on the idea of setting mines near Fujairah.

The Gulf-based expert then added that “Iran, the Houthis, Hizbollah, Iraqi Shi’a militia, they are all one,” meaning that even if the Houthis did it, they were acting on behalf of Iran. He added that none of these groups does anything without directives from Tehran.

The London-based expert said that the Iranians had no desire, or intentions, to attack military forces, because that would bring about a sure reprisal. But by attacking oil tankers they hoped to be able to generate enough international pressure against the United States to force it to lift the embargo.

Comment: In other words, Iran was saying that “if we can’t sell our oil to the outside world, we have the capability to prevent others from also selling their oil to the outside world.

Dr. Halah Mustapha, writing for al-ahram’s editorial page on 18 May 2019, noted that Iran has released some of their “thought prisoners” in an attempt to win back some of their deteriorating public support. She also believes that should a war start up between Iran and the U.S. that it would spread, involving other countries, in the region and internationally.

She also pointed out that the U.S. has the upper hand in this confrontation and/or any potential war that might break out, and that in the end, Iran’s only viable option will be to sit down and renegotiate with Trump.

In closing she added that Trump will likely get re-elected.

On 20 May, the Dubai-based, Saudi-owned TV channel al-arabiyya noted that Ahwaz Arabs have reported that Iran has moved S-300 missiles in to the Ahwaz region.

Comment: The Ahwaz region is in Iran’s far west, and is adjacent to Iraq and the Tigris River region. Its population are mostly Arabs, and Saudi Arabia has been cultivating them for years. The S-300 missiles are a Russian-built anti-aircraft system that pre-date the S-400 system that Russia is selling to Turkey.

This move, and this news, tell us a few things. One, is that by moving these missiles closer to Iraq, Iran might be expecting American air raids to be coming from the West. Two, Iran expects that war is imminent. And, three, the fact that it was a Saudi TV station that reported this news, and that the intelligence came originally from “Ahwaz Arabs,” indicates that the Saudis likely have “humint” sources embedded within the Ahwazi Arabs inside Iran.

On 20 May al-Arabiyya also reported that Turkey has been selling “phony real estate contracts” to Saudis. In other words, the Turks have been pitching grandiose real estate projects in Turkey to wealthy Saudi investors who have forked over huge sums for these projects only to find that the projects did not exist. (See the article below for more on Turkey’s shenanigans.

Hisham Nijar, writing for Egypt’s al-ahram editorial page on 19 May, believes that the current Arab Spring 2.0 taking place in Sudan, and which brought down the al-Basheer regime was a huge blow to Erdogan’s Ottoman Empire scheme similar to the dethronement of Muhammad Mursi’s brief Muslim Brotherhood (MB) regime in Egypt (2012-2013).

He supports his contention that the al-Basheer regime was a MB regime and a tool of Erdogan’s by the fact that al-Basheer and several of his cronies were received warmly in Istanbul when they escaped the wrath of the Sudanese people–along with stolen money. He added that this pilfered money will be pumped into the “black market” organization that Erdogan and “those close to him” operate all over the world–which includes money laundering, smuggling, suspicious deals, and the financing of terrorism.

In Nijar’s view, now that it looks like the Sudanese people, as exemplified by the “freedom and change” forces, and the army, are reaching agreement about the future of Sudan–a future that calls for it to return to the (moderate) Arab fold and to distance itself from the MB-Erdogan circles–Erdogan is in a real stew. Mr. Nijar then, believes that Erdogan will try to get the Sudanese people to lose faith in their revolution and turn back to the ikhwani (MB)/”Erdogani” solution for stability. Mr. Nijar therefore blames

al-Basheer holdovers in the army and Erdogan for the murder of the strikers as part of their plan to instill dispair in the hearts of the Sudanese people.

Only time will tell whether or not Mr. Nijar is correct in his assumption that the exile of the thug al-Basheer really means a new beginning for Sudan and a defeat for the Erdogan and Brotherhood axis. Or, will the Islamists end up running the show anyway?

When Australians went to the polls over the weekend, it was universally expected that the left-wing Labor Party would emerge the winner.

To the shock of the pollsters, however, the left lost.

In Australia, the Liberals are the conservative party, and so it was the conservatives who won a surprise victory. In a 151-seat House of Representatives, the Liberal Party, with its longtime coalition partner the Nationals, have so far won (or lead in) 78 seats, with Labor well behind at 67 seats, and six seats going to minor parties.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has already resigned, saying, “It is obvious that Labor will not be able to form the next government.”

The current and now future prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, said simply, “I’ve always believed in miracles.”

Morrison ran a canny campaign that allowed his party to recover after it ousted Malcolm Turnbull, the former Liberal prime minister, last August.

A social conservative and devout Christian, Morrison’s appeal was folksy, with slogans like “a fair go for those who have a go.” In the U.S., we’d say “a fair deal if you try.” Different words, but the same sentiment.

Labor, by contrast, ran mostly on climate change. On Sunday, in fact, The New York Times led with the story “It was supposed to be Australia’s climate change election. What happened?”

What happened was very simple: The silent majority turned out to be more interested in prosperity and job creation than they were in promises to clamp down on coal mining.

That majority was very silent. Labor was ahead on every single election poll for the past month. It even led in the exit polling. The Australian people did not want to tell the pollsters that they had voted conservative, but they did actually want to vote conservative.

Apart from the stunning Liberal victory, the most surprising thing about the election was how well two smaller parties did. The big parties all lost votes. The Liberals lost 0.6% of their vote from the last election in 2013, while Labor lost 0.9%. The Greens were also down 0.2%.

The only parties that gained a significant number of votes? Two right-wing populist parties, the United Australia Party and the One Nation Party, which together picked up 5.1% of the vote.

The Australian conservative victory wasn’t the only significant election result in Asia over the weekend. India also finished its long election process, and there, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to have won a major victory, winning between 280 and 315 seats in Parliament. Modi needs only 272 seats for a majority.

When coupled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in April elections in Israel, the electoral results of the past few months have seen surprising victories for conservative parties.

Australia, India, and Israel are remarkably different places. Their definitions of “conservative” also differ. You can’t draw any big lessons from all of these victories—except that parties from the right end of national political spectrums are often more popular than the pollsters recognize.

But certainly, the lesson from Australia for the beleaguered Conservative Party in Britain is clear. Being behind in the polls is not a death sentence.

Conservatives need to avoid fashionable causes, and emphasize the basics—economic competence, fairness for those who try, law and order, national defense, and national sovereignty.

In Britain, support for the Conservative Party has collapsed over the past year, with one influential pollster commenting:

While one can never be certain about what has caused changes in voting intention, it is hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that they are shedding support to more unambiguously pro-Brexit parties like UKIP and the Brexit party. … Across the board, Conservative support seems to be falling away.

Here’s a tip for our British Conservative friends: Conservative parties that do conservative things win elections. Conservative parties that don’t do them, or don’t know what to do, don’t win elections.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has completely failed to do conservative things, and so, 63% of her own supporters say she has been a poor or a terrible prime minister.

May’s time, as that pollster put it, is therefore “essentially up.” Her successor had better learn the lesson from Australia—and learn it fast.

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

When we talk about “pro-life” in our national discussion about abortion, “life” is understood to be about the unborn child in the mother’s womb.

But it would serve us well to expand our understanding about what “pro-life” means.

We should understand that respecting the sanctity of life is key to the values and behaviors in general that sustain and nourish all our lives today and create the necessary conditions for our future.

A just-released report from the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports that the total number of births in the United States in 2018 was down 2% from 2017 and is the lowest number of births in the country in 32 years.

It also reports that the general fertility rate—the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15-44—was also down 2% and is at a record low.

The total fertility rate needs to be 2,100 births per 1,000 women to keep our overall population at steady state—not shrinking. It now stands at 1,728 per 1,000 women.

If the alternative to “pro-life” is so-called “pro-choice,” the mindset of legal abortion on demand, the latter is capturing, and destroying, American society. We are choosing to extinguish ourselves.

It turns out that “reproductive freedom,” the banner under which “pro-choice” operates, translates into the freedom to not reproduce.

University of Southern California demographer Dowell Myers calls the declining birthrates we are witnessing a “barometer of despair.”

Birthrates decline, according to Myers, when people are not optimistic about the future.

How about the general collapse of the marriage institution?

In 1960, 72% of Americans 18 and above were married. By 2016, this was down to 50%.

At a conference at the Vatican in 2014, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, called marriage “the single most humanizing institution in history.”

He said that life begins “when male and female meet and embrace.”

“Morality,” he continued, “is the love between husband and wife, parent and child, extended outward to the world.”

A society in which sanctity of life is respected is a society that appreciates that we are all part of something larger than ourselves. When we lose this awe, this appreciation for the sacred, we disconnect from one another and disappear into our separate selves.

Love, marriage, children, and our future begin to recede.

It’s a spiritual tragedy with profound and destructive practical implications for society.

The Census Bureau projects that in 2035, for the first time, the number of Americans over the age of 65 will exceed the number of Americans under 18.

As society ages, the number of retirees per each working American increases—what is called the dependency ratio.

We are already seeing the implications with huge deficits in our Social Security and Medicare programs, where payroll taxes finance retirement and health care costs of the elderly.

A healthy pushback is starting to occur at the nation’s grassroots.

States are getting aggressive to stop the destructive abortion culture. Most recently, Alabama and Georgia have enacted laws making abortion that is legal under federal law illegal in the state.

This puts state law on a collision course with federal law.

Whether this will wind up at the Supreme Court with a revisiting of the Roe v. Wade decision remains to be seen.

We should be praying it will happen.

The current abortion culture that has been defining America since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 is part and symptomatic of an America whose future is in danger.

We must fight for restoration of a pro-life culture in our country that respects the sanctity of life and will restore the American family, children, and our future.

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

To listen to media pundits, President Trump has created the trade-war crises with China. They say he is economically illiterate. Or he’s a dolt. Or he’s a xenophobe. Or a jingoist. And his impetuous actions are “roiling” markets and making businesses nervous and could tank the economy.

It’s all Trump’s fault. This is not just wrong, it is 180 degrees wrong and demonstrably so. In fact, Trump is the only American leader actually trying to right a substantial wrong.

The truth is that the China problem has been ignored or avoided by multiple presidents and Congresses from both parties, and certainly from the media and D.C. establishment, as far back as the late 1980s, but overtly since China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization. And it has always been a rightable wrong by United States leaders with some backbone and intestinal fortitude. So it has not happened.

Here’s what China has been doing.

The United States and many allies thought when China joined the WTO in 2001, the country would open its economy for more full trade. Until then, it had been utterly closed off to foreign companies even while it market-ized its formerly socialist economy. That’s actually part of the deal of being in the WTO — member nations are supposed to abide by free market trading principles to some extent. There was also the thinking that perhaps the Chinese Communist Party would allow more political and religious freedom as the country became more enlightened through trade relationships with the world’s industrialized democracies.

That, it turns out, was a bit of a pipe dream.

China has merely used its WTO membership to flood its trading “partners” with state-subsidized exports while throwing up numerous walls to continue blocking access to the country’s burgeoning middle class — including tariffs. They obviously continue their protectionist, controlling ways. And they continue to crush dissent and religious freedoms, including Chinese Christians.

“China has effectively used the multilateral trading system to its own advantage, enjoying the benefits of those rules of engagement while not always following those rules in spirit,” Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist and former head of the China division at the International Monetary Fund, told the Associated Press.

Or following the rules at all. But the comment shows how even the milquetoast IMF acknowledges China’s bad behavior, even if it soft-pedals it.

Because the reality is that it is much worse. From blackmailing U.S. companies and other foreign companies to gain entrance to the Chinese market, to secretly embedding spyware on the hardware they export, to stealing patents and creating cheap knock-offs, to product-dumping for market control to outright espionage and more.

This has meant the loss of likely hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of American jobs and wages over decades. That is a straightforward theft of prosperity. The same, though less, for Europeans who China also treats this way — although the Europeans are not quite the free-trade purists the U.S. attempts to be

Everyone knew. China is one of the worst trade actors on the world stage, not to mention a growing military threat beyond just their region. But no American leaders made the effort to do anything other than kick the can down the road — just as they did with North Korea’s nuclear and missile program and with our European allies in NATO paying their fair share for defense.

Economically, the result is a badly lopsided trading relationship: The U.S. trade deficit with China last year hit a record $379 billion. And their economic growth in part at our expense is funding a huge military buildup that does not rely on the traditional numbers superiority of the Chinese but on high-tech weaponry, including in space.

The trade deficit itself is not the end of the world, although it does transfer wealth, it does so in return for goods. I have a trade deficit so to speak with Walmart, Publix grocery store and Race Trac, to name a few. But that is because I don’t create goods or services I am trying to sell to them. U.S. companies want to sell to the Chinese people, but the government doesn’t allow it or cheats on it, and that is what is creating a lot of the trade deficit. The trade balance doesn’t have to be even. The trading market does.

Donald Trump the man has been harping on this problem for years, even decades. He was a lone voice because no one else wanted to poke the dragon. It was his initial issue when entering the presidential race. When he spoke to Florida Republicans about a week before coming down the elevator at Trump Tower to announce his bid, China was the focal point. It was not until he gauged the American people’s frustration at illegal immigration and the open southern border that he shifted focus, while still including China.

So this is the actual background for Trump beginning last year with tariffing some Chinese goods to get them to the table. They responded and talks went on for months, supposedly making progress and getting closer. Then the Chinese did what they always do, the week before the final negotiations and expected deal were to be announced, they reneged on every major commitment they had made. This worked with the likes of Barack Obama and other American leaders, who just backed down and got some gosh-awful deal that they misled the public about.

Not with President Trump, though. Trump tweeted two days later he was slapping tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, which went into effect last Friday. Again, the media spun wildly at Trump’s actions, because of course they assume the worse and did not know or care about China reneging. Further, Trump spelled out plans for tariffs on another $300 billion. In response to tariffs on $500 billion of Chinese imports, China responded with tariffs on $60 billion.

And this belies the reality that we always had the vast upper hand if we would just wield it. The Chinese will have to come back to the table and they will have to give the U.S. a lot of what we want. Because the reality is that while both sides get damaged in a trade war, the Chinese are far more damaged than the U.S. To be blunt, they need us more than we need them.

“The United States has legitimate grounds to be upset with the Chinese,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “This has been building for almost 20 years.”

http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-05-21 07:49:052019-05-21 07:50:26Trump Won’t Kick The Can Down The Road On China’s Cheating

A mob of eight to 10 males wielding hammers descended upon bystanders at the East Bank Light Rail station on Friday night injuring several, according to recorded police dispatch audio.

The incident was apparently reported to 911 just before 10 p.m. on Friday according to the audio and other social media police scanner reports. A 9:48 p.m. Facebook post on 2nd Precinct Minneapolis Crime Watch page said that University of Minnesota (U of M) police were requesting assistance from Minneapolis police (MPD) and Metro Transit police for “a group of 8-10 males chasing people with hammers” and that some people were injured. A Facebook post a minute later on Minneapolis Scanner page said that the three police departments were responding to “multiple [911] calls” about “10-12 Somali teen males armed with hammers chasing people,” also with “several injuries reported.” Both Facebook pages regularly post summaries of police scanner audio.

“The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a deadly shooting early Monday morning at the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay….Authorities say the public is not in danger. They believe the two men knew one other and were both attending prayer services at the mosque.”

Police “believe the two men knew one other and were both attending prayer services at the mosque,” and assured that the public is not in danger.

Beyond this particular incident however is another danger and a worrying trend regularly seen within Islam: violence against fellow Muslims. In an article “Muslim Killing Muslims by the Droves”, about 12 million Muslims have been killed by their coreligionists since 1948. Violence is sanctioned in Islamic texts while condemned in Western democracies. The West should be a peaceful haven for everyone.

Although this case may possibly have absolutely nothing to do with a religious squabble, it is concerning that the West continues to import the broader ills of the Islamic world. At the height of the refugee crisis in 2016, a refugee center in Germany was burned down following a dispute among residents over Ramadan meals.

TAMPA, Fla. — The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a deadly shooting early Monday morning at the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay.

Deputies say just before midnight, two men got into an argument in the parking lot outside the mosque during a Ramadan event attended by several hundred people.

At some point during the argument, one of the men fired at the other.

An off-duty deputy, who had just finished working security detail at the event, heard the gun shots and rushed to the parking lot.

The Sheriff’s Office reports the deputy found one man holding a gun and another man who had been shot at least two times. The deputy detained the suspect shooter until additional units arrived on scene.

Paramedics rushed the victim to Tampa General Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Authorities say the public is not in danger. They believe the two men knew one other and were both attending prayer services at the mosque.….

Security Investigations (HSI) special agents have described as an increasing trend of fraudulent families presenting at the border in order to take advantage of loopholes in immigration laws and avoid being detained by immigration authorities.

“Cases like this demonstrate the real danger that exists to children in this disturbing new trend,” said HSI Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa Erichs. “And while we have seen egregious cases of smugglers renting and recycling children, this case involving a six-month-old infant is a new low – and an unprecedented level of child endangerment.”

Amilcar Guiza-Reyes, a 51-year old citizen and national of Honduras, who was previously deported in 2013, made an initial appearance in federal court in the Southern District of Texas May 10, charged with 8 USC 1324 alien smuggling for allegedly smuggling a 6-month-old infant across the U.S.-Mexico border.

On May 7, Guiza-Reyes was observed by U.S. Border Patrol wading across the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the U.S. near Hidalgo, Texas, carrying an infant child.

He initially claimed to the U.S. Border Patrol agents that the infant was his son. However, after presenting a fraudulent Honduran birth certificate at the Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, he was referred to HSI special agents for interview and further investigation. He later admitted to the HSI special agents that he obtained the child’s fraudulent document to show him as the father and that he intended to use the child to further his unlawful entry in to the U.S.

The child in this case, whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons, was transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services for placement.

Cases like this one have led HSI to step up investigations into similar cases of fraud involving children. In recent months, HSI has deployed 130 personnel to the border, including special agents, forensic interview specialists, document examiners and victim assistance specialists, in an effort to combat this phenomenon.

The radical left blames Trump’s immigration policies for separating “immigrant” families, the reality is that all too often, alien families are separated long before the aliens come to the United States.

The Flores Decision mandates that illegal alien families with minor children cannot be kept in custody for more than 20 days.

This has led to a huge increase in two types of fraud, adult illegal aliens falsely claiming to be minors and as we see in this case, adult aliens entering the United States illegally with children to whom they are not related but falsely claim to be those minor children’s parents.

In this case an infant was separated from its family either with the consent of the parents who may have been paid to “rent” the baby or by kidnappers who simply took the child from its family.

Of course now the challenge will be to find the actual parents of the six month old infant child.

That process may take a very long time and undoubtedly the media will complain bitterly about how long the child is separated from his/her parents. They will likely blame DHS and the Trump administration for the crimes committed by alien smugglers who have been emboldened by failures of the leadership of both parties to provide essential resources to secure our borders

Today the U.S. southern border is under siege with tens of thousands of illegal aliens being apprehended each month, overwhelming the already limited resources of CBP (Customs and Border Protection) while members of the lunatic left claim that there is no crisis on the border but a fantasy created by the Trump administration.

Furthermore, historically, for decades, families from foreign countries have been separated when a family member enters the U.S. without inspection or violates the terms of his/her lawful admission to work illegally in the United States and/or commit other violations of our laws so that they can send money back to their families in their home countries.

Incredibly politicians who favor massive amnesty programs to legalize unknown millions of illegal aliens claim that the best way to reunite these families is to provide these illegal aliens with lawful status and then empower them to permit their families to legally join them in the United States.

As I noted back in 2013 when I testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic, Building An Immigration System Worthy Of American Values the immigration policies of the Obama administration and statements made by politicians who promised to provide lawful status to massive numbers of illegal aliens served to fire the “starter’s pistol” for aspiring illegal aliens from around the world, turning our borders into the finish line.

Of course the most sensible solution to “reuniting” these families is to send the illegal alien back to his/her home country where they are then reunited with their families.

There are numerous accounts of children being “rented” out by their own parents to smugglers and to aliens who seek to use that child to expedite their release from ICE custody when they make bogus claims to political asylum.

Another possibility also exists, very young children may be kidnapped by smugglers to be used to further their alien smuggling operations. Infants obviously cannot be interviewed and make the ideal “child” to exploit in such situations.

Immigration fraud has always been a major issue for immigration law enforcement but one which receives little if any attention in the mainstream media or even by politicians who propose immigration legislation that ignores how fraud may well render the laws that they enact moot and meaningless.

On May 18, 2004 I testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims at a hearing on the topic: Pushing The Border Out On Alien Smuggling: New Tools And Intelligence Initiatives.

That hearing was initially to be held to explore the issue of alien smuggling. I convinced Representative Jackson Lee to look beyond the U.S./Mexican border and consider the role of visa fraud, immigration fraud and document fraud to facilitate alien smuggling. The terminology of “pushing the border out” referred to my argument that requiring aliens to present visas when they seek admission into the United States would move America’s borders out to the U.S. consulates and embassies where the visas are issued.

Immigration fraud was, in fact, determined to be the prime method and entry for international terrorists and was an issue covered at length by the 9/11 Commission and documented in the official report prepared by the 9/11 Commission staff, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel. This report focused specifically on the ability of the terrorists to enter the United States and ultimately embed themselves in the United States as they went about their deadly preparations to carry out a deadly attack.

With so much “on the line” our political leaders irrespective of party affiliation must finally make border security and related areas of immigration law enforcement the priority it should have been for all too many years.

http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2019-05-21 06:52:312019-05-23 19:01:01ALIEN SMUGGLERS EXPLOIT INFANTS -- While the Left declares there is no crisis on the border.